View Poll Results: Will Biden be a good president |
Yes
|    | 45 | 45.92% |
No
|    | 25 | 25.51% |
He won't live long enough to determine either way
|    | 16 | 16.33% |
Define "good"
|    | 23 | 23.47% |  | | | 
07.02.2021, 23:49
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | Indeed. Were they also dictatorial in 2017? Sometimes the only only way to deal with regressive policies is a bit of tit for tat. | | | | | It was the Dems who called Trump's that. Celebrating them now that they're Biden's reeks, of double standards and hipocrisy.
Not that that's anything new, from both sides, but the Dem's claim to be the good ones and that just doesn't add up.
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08.02.2021, 08:52
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | It was the Dems who called Trump's that. Celebrating them now that they're Biden's reeks, of double standards and hipocrisy.
Not that that's anything new, from both sides, but the Dem's claim to be the good ones and that just doesn't add up. | | | | |
I believe that the rash of Executive orders put in place in 2017 were the most efficient way to stamp out Obama’s legacy. Not because of governance, but mostly because Trump was probably still smarting from being insulted by Obama at the Correspondents Dinner sometime earlier. Or some other petty thing.
Executive Orders are an efficient way to reverse certain policies. I’m not sure I see it as a moral failing.
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08.02.2021, 13:42
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President?
@Urs Max
Trump is yesterday's man as relevant as yesterday's newspaper, discussing him now is just pi##ing on the ashes.
I am happy to leave any evaluation of his presidency to the historians, no doubt, there will be plenty of them.
Sadly, for Trump whatever they write he will always be remembered for organising an armed attack on the Capitol.
Just like we only remember Caesar for fiddling while Rome burnt or Pontius Pilate for washing his hands, the memories of all their other deeds have long ago faded away.
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08.02.2021, 14:04
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | Executive Orders are an efficient way to reverse certain policies. I’m not sure I see it as a moral failing. | | | | | Nor do I say it is.
Labeling the other dictator for using them, but doing exactly the same at the first opportunity and labeling that as a good thing, is. It's deeply hypocrytical and an excellent example for double standards. | Quote: | |  | | | Trump is yesterday's man as relevant as yesterday's newspaper, discussing him now is just pi##ing on the ashes. | | | | | Maybe you shouldn't have mentioned him yourself then? Or is that a different thing ...
Just saying | The following 4 users would like to thank Urs Max for this useful post: | | 
08.02.2021, 14:20
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | Just like we only remember Caesar for fiddling while Rome burnt | | | | | That was Nero.
Tom
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08.02.2021, 14:36
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | That was Nero.
Tom | | | | | Imperator Nero Cladius Divi Claudius filius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
But you are correct, usually remembered as Nero.
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08.02.2021, 14:38
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | Imperator Nero Cladius Divi Claudius filius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
But you are correct, usually remembered as Nero. | | | | | He never used the Caesar, it was just part of his name, as it was for Julius Caesar.
Tom
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08.02.2021, 14:45
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | Nor do I say it is.
Labeling the other dictator for using them, but doing exactly the same at the first opportunity and labeling that as a good thing, is. It's deeply hypocrytical and an excellent example for double standards.
| | | | | I think you have to look at the content of the order before passing judgment on hypocrisy. Nevertheless, I disagree.
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08.02.2021, 14:53
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | He never used the Caesar, it was just part of his name, as it was for Julius Caesar.
Tom | | | | | You are definitely older than I had imagined, do you still have your toga? | The following 3 users would like to thank marton for this useful post: | | 
08.02.2021, 14:55
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | You are definitely older than I had imagined, do you still have your toga?  | | | | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_R...0still%20alive.
Nero is alive and well and lives in Ticino.
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08.02.2021, 14:56
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | You are definitely older than I had imagined, do you still have your toga?  | | | | | I was just going to ask how Tom knew.
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08.02.2021, 21:07
| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | Just like we only remember Caesar for fiddling while Rome burnt | | | | | | Quote: | |  | | | That was Nero. | | | | | It was neither (Julius) Caesar nor Nero. Violins (or fiddles) weren't developed until one and a half millennia after their time.
Also, I remember Nero more for his intense and extreme cruelty. OK, so I didn't know him like Tom did, but he had a substantial reputational image problem. | Quote: | |  | | | He never used the Caesar, it was just part of his name, as it was for Julius Caesar. | | | | | Nero adopted the imperial title "Caesar" (intending to link himself to Julius) when he became Imperator. It was part of his name only in the same way that "Her Royal Highness" is part of Queen Elizabeth's name. Or to put it another way, not as analogously, Caesar was part of Nero's name as much as Francis is part of the current Pope's.
On the other hand, Caesar was the cognomen of Julius, the Imperator. Nero was related to Julius but did not inherit his cognomen.
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08.02.2021, 21:34
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | Just like we only remember Caesar for fiddling while Rome burnt or Pontius Pilate for washing his hands, the memories of all their other deeds have long ago faded away. | | | | | both of which are actually propaganda.
We only know about Pilate wasking his hands from Asterix, and originally from the Bible, which may not be an entirely balanced and historically account of what really happened.
Caesar is in actual fact mostly remembered for his wars in Gaul, for torturing generations of schoolkids who had to learn Latin using them, and for his political maneuverings that paved the way for the decline of the republic and the rise of the empire, and then maybe also for his sexual exploits, and lastly for his assasination, of which most people know the details from Shakespeare, who never even actually claimed to be an accurate historian.
The guy who supposedly fiddled while Rome burnt was Nero, who lived more than 100 years later. It would be like saying Obama was the president who won WW1, or that Lincoln defeated Hitler. And Nero didn't actually fiddle because the fiddle hadn't been invented. The story was written by his enemies long after his death.
So yeah, let's agree that Obama was assasinated by the grassy knoll in Dallas because he had crucified Jesus.
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09.02.2021, 17:41
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: |  | | | It was neither (Julius) Caesar nor Nero. Violins (or fiddles) weren't developed until one and a half millennia after their time.
Also, I remember Nero more for his intense and extreme cruelty. OK, so I didn't know him like Tom did, but he had a substantial reputational image problem.
Nero adopted the imperial title "Caesar" (intending to link himself to Julius) when he became Imperator. It was part of his name only in the same way that "Her Royal Highness" is part of Queen Elizabeth's name. Or to put it another way, not as analogously, Caesar was part of Nero's name as much as Francis is part of the current Pope's.
On the other hand, Caesar was the cognomen of Julius, the Imperator. Nero was related to Julius but did not inherit his cognomen. | | | | | I believe you're both, in part, right. Ceasar was part of the family name, adopted after Julius so show continuity between emperors. Ceasar as honorific then became synonymous with emperor/ruler. I think Kaiser derives from it too.
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10.02.2021, 02:37
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | I believe you're both, in part, right. Ceasar was part of the family name, adopted after Julius so show continuity between emperors. Ceasar as honorific then became synonymous with emperor/ruler. I think Kaiser derives from it too. | | | | | Yes, Kaiser does probably come from Caesar.
Although the name Caesar does recur throughout Roman history, when used without any further context or disambiguation it is understood to refer to Gaius Julius Caesar and to nobody else. Similarly there are more than one Bismark, Napoleon and Cromwell in history, but if we use these names without adding further context, it is entirely clear to which individuals they refer.
Caesar's first name was actually Gaius, with Julius being something like his "surname". Although in those days naming conventions were a bit different to what they are today, so its best to leave the word "surname" in inverted commas. Contrary to common misconecption, Gaius Julius was never actually made emperor.
The term Caesar was not part of his official or formal name but an add-on or a kind of nickname or cognomen. There were several unrelated Julius famlies (or clans) in Rome at the time and to differentiate them, people used to add descriptive terms. A bit like calling somebody Jones the Butcher to differentiate them from Jones the Builder. Only nobody actually knows with certainty what a Caesar is because the meaning has been lost in time. One theory says it might mean bull elephant, whereas another says it might mean blue eyes, and another that it might mean born by caesarian section. All of these have some linguistical merit but the evidence is inconclusive.
Many emperors added Caesar to their name as a sort of sign of legitimacy connecting back to Gaius Julius Caesar, even if they weren't actually related, and it became customary to address them thus.
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10.02.2021, 18:07
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President?
Sadly the GOP and Trump are more fun to comment on, for example
Trump's lawyers did such a hash job of defending Trump's impeachment that one GOP senator switched his vote to confirm the impeachment is constitutional.
Trump has never admitted his election loss was legal but one of his lawyers said yesterday "The people get tired of an administration they don't want. And they know how to change it. And they just did."
A Virginia state senator and gubernatorial candidate who has described herself as “Trump in heels” is emerging as a problem for the state’s Republican party as they seek to take the governor’s mansion.
Now Amanda Chase on Tuesday filed a lawsuit alleging that her Republican Party was attempting to tank her candidacy, accusing the state GOP of trying to force a situation where the party’s executive committee selects a gubernatorial nominee rather than a traditional convention or primary.
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11.02.2021, 11:26
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| | Re: Will Biden be a good President?
Frightening videos shown yesterday of the Capitol rioters during Trump's impeachment.
Anyway in my view, he is being impeached for the wrong reason | Quote: |  | | | Lancet Commission blasts Donald Trump's 'inept and insufficient' COVID-19 response, laments widening inequalities.
Trump's actions "caused a lot of citizens to fail to take it seriously and interfered with the kind of coordinated response they have been able to use in a lot of countries that are more successful than the U.S. in controlling the epidemic"
About 40% of the nation’s coronavirus deaths could have been prevented if the United States’ average death rate matched other industrialized nations, a new Lancet Commission report found. | | | | | | 
11.02.2021, 11:43
| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | Frightening videos shown yesterday of the Capitol rioters during Trump's impeachment.
Anyway in my view, he is being impeached for the wrong reason | | | | | Trump downplayed Covid while Merkel exaggerated Covid. Strange times.
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11.02.2021, 14:36
| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: | |  | | | Trump downplayed Covid while Merkel exaggerated Covid. Strange times. | | | | | It's clear which extreme was worse for the citizens of each respective country. Rather an abundance of caution than glib dismissal.
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11.02.2021, 15:04
| | Re: Will Biden be a good President? | Quote: |  | | | It's clear which extreme was worse for the citizens of each respective country. Rather an abundance of caution than glib dismissal. | | | | | It's not about what's worse. They are two different flavors of behavior that shouldn't exist in modern first world countries.
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